Georgia is situated in the center of the grand collision between the European and Asian land masses. The continents crash, rise spectacularly in the Caucasus mountains, and release their tensions into the Black Sea. Georgian culture is born from this encounter between Europe and Asia, mountain and sea. Despite countless invasions from every possible direction, Persians and Arabs from the South, Russians from the North, Turks from the West, and Mongols from the East, Georgians have managed to maintain and evolve a unique cultural and linguistic identity that has incorporated elements from neighbors, traders, and invaders but has never lost its distinctive characteristics. The nature of this Georgian identity is intrinsically linked to the wild beauty of the land they occupy. A famous legend relates that when God was doling out pieces of earth to the world's various peoples, the Georgians were too busy drinking and feasting to take notice. In time, the deadline passed and all the world's peoples had received their land. When God noticed the Georgians, He chastised them for their irresponsibility. The tamada, toastmaster, told God that they had used their time well in making toasts praising and thanking Him for creating such a wondrous world. God was pleased with this response and decided to give the Georgians the final and most beautiful piece of land which he was keeping for Himself. And this is how the Georgians came to live in the land of Georgia. For people who have never been to Georgia, this story may sound fanciful and patently false, a clear distortion of historical fact. For people who have spent time in Georgia, nearly every aspect of this story rings true, from the natural beauty to the inspired feasting and eloquent toastmaking to the bureaucratic negligence.
One dynamic at play in Georgia that has made for such a rich and diverse yet persevering culture is that in its lowland areas it is a natural crossroads for trade between Europe and Asia and yet its highland areas in the mountains are almost impenetrable allowing for tremendous cultural stability in the face of aggression or assimilative forces. In the ancient world, Georgia was caught between the Greek world and the Persian. There was much trade flowing from the Black Sea ports established by the Greeks such as Phasis (now Poti), Dioscurias (Sukhumi), and Bathys (Batumi) along the Rioni and the Mtkvari rivers and overland to Persia but there was also territorial encroachment. Western Georgia, Colchis at the time, was largely in the Greek sphere of influence whereas Eastern Georgia, or Iberia, was frequently ruled by Persians either directly or indirectly and was heavily influenced by Persian social and cultural models and the religious ideas of Zoroastrianism. The principle evidence regarding the presence of Zoroastrianism in Georgia besides the archaeological remains indicating fire altars and worship in the Zoroastrian tradition is the connection between the central pre-Christian Georgian god, Armazi, and Ahura-Mazda. The prolonged exposure to Greco-Roman, for indeed the Romans also conquered Georgia in the 1st century CE, and Persian civilization provided an important evolutionary ingredient in the transformation of longstanding Caucasian traditions into the unique Georgian culture we know today.
To many, the decisive moment in whether Georgia was to have a primarily western orientation towards Greece and the rest of Europe or an eastern orientation towards Persia and Asia was the adoption of Christianity around 330 CE by King Mirian III and Queen Nana after a series of miracles performed or inspired by St. Nino, a revered saint from Cappadocia and the leading figure in the conversion of Georgia to Christianity. Despite persistent interactions with Zoroastrian Iran and later conquests at the hands of Muslim invaders such as the Arabs in the 7th century, the Safavid Persians, and Ottoman Turks, other than the Adjarians and the Laz on the southeastern rim of the Black Sea, the peoples who made up the historical Georgian nation have remained committed to Orthodox Christianity. Although perhaps a little cynical, it is probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that the almost ritualistic Georgian love of wine and fondness for roasted pork, freshly slaughtered baby pig being one of the delicacies most prized when honoring guests, made Islam seem like a highly unattractive civilizational choice. The Georgian traditions of hospitality involving wine are so central to the culture and its values that Christianity represented a much more compatible religion than Islam.
Indeed it is the adaptation of Christianity to preexisting Georgian cultural forms that characterizes the creation of the Georgian Church. Two of the chief defining traits of Georgian culture since antiquity are wine cultivation and polyphonic singing. Darra Goldstein in her book The Georgian Feast writes of the intersection of wine and faith, "Bearing a cross plaited of dried vines and tied with her own hair, Saint Nino seemed to represent divine approval for the winemaking that had been practiced for centuries. The vine and the cross became inextricably entwined, each an object of devotion. In this way the advent of Christianity served to elevate the importance of viticulture, just as the focus on wine helped t0 lubricate the conversion" (Goldstein, xx). Similarly, the Byzantine one-voiced hymns that the Georgians received along with the rules of the divine service were transformed into polyphonic chants. But just as the Georgians remade Christianity in their own image, Christianity represented a new lens to view and illuminate their ancient culture. The great 11th century Georgian philosopher Ioane Petritsi, for example, "explains the principle of the wholeness of the Christian Trinity by the analogy of the merging of three-voices in the Georgian singing" (Tsurtsumia, 80). The uniqueness of Georgian Christianity quickly resulted in the breaking off of the Georgian Church from the Orthodox mainstream in Constantinople and the granting of its autocephaly, or autonomy, in the 5th century under King Vakhtang Gorgasali.
Vakhtang Gorgasali is a legendary hero in Georgian history for leading a fierce revolt against Persian rule in eastern Georgia and perhaps more importantly for his founding of Tbilisi, which superceded Mtskheta as the new capital. The story has it that King Gorgasali, from the Persian word Gorgaslan meaning "Wolf-headed" evoking the terror that he raised in the Persian consciousness, was hunting when his falcon chased a pheasant. In searching for the pheasant, he noticed steam rising and realized the bird was already cooked in the natural hot springs. From that moment, he chose to build the city of Tbilisi, Tbili meaning "warm" in Georgian. Tbilisi quickly grew into the major cosmopolitan center of the transcaucasus. Tbilisi became an extraordinarily diverse meeting ground of trade and cultural life and it was under Muslim rule that it first blossomed. In the 7th century, Tbilisi found itself under the yoke of the newly founded Islamic Caliphate and Arab rule, which would last for the next 400 years. Despite a very turbulent history in which the city has been razed to the ground more than 30 times, Tbilisi has been not only the epicenter of Georgian cultural life but also an important seat of Muslim and Jewish scholarship, Armenian and Persian culture, and a true crossroads city between Europe and Asia, Russia and the Middle East.
The effort to retake Georgia from Muslim rule reached a turning point with the Battle of Didgori in 1121 when King David the Builder, of the famous Bagrationi line which claimed descent from the Israelite Kings Solomon and David, led a badly outnumbered Georgian army against a coalition army of Muslim states. King David won at Didgori and continued to chase out the Seljuk Turks who had laid waste to much of Georgia. In 1122, King David the Builder recaptured Tbilisi, one of the last vestiges of 400 years of Muslim rule over Georgia. However, King David the Builder was a profoundly humane character in addition to his military prowess and he instituted tolerant policies toward religious and ethnic minorities in Georgia, including the former Muslim rulers. King David's spirit of tolerance combined with his strategic genius resulted in the golden period of Georgian political history with a unified, multiethnic Georgian-led state that spanned the Caucasus from the Black Sea to the Caspian.
The Georgian state of the 12th century, created by King David the Builder and expanded by King Giorgi III and his daughter Queen Tamar, not only marked the height of Georgian territorial expansion and regional influence but created the conditions for a Georgian Renaissance. The flowering of Georgian literature, architecture, philosophy, and other arts in this period has given color and beauty to Georgians over the centuries that have followed, some of them very dark, and laid the seeds for the cultural regenerations of the modern era. The luminescent figure to emerge from this time is Shota Rustaveli and his brilliant epic poem, "The Knight in the Panther's Skin." Rustaveli is said to have studied at some of the finest monasteries in Georgia at the time, Gelati and Ikalto, and died in Jerusalem at the Georgian Monastery of the Holy Cross. Rustaveli has an all-embracing, universalistic vision of life that stands as an eloquent, enduring testament to the highest ideals of Georgian culture. Influenced by Platonic conceptions of love and wisdom, Persian models for poetry and storytelling, and a strong value placed on honor and heroism, Rustaveli's poem is a highly beautiful and philosophic work whose relevance and power is testified to by the number of tamadas who recite its passages at supras and weddings throughout Georgia to this day.
The arrival of the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries, first under Genghis Khan's direction and particularly catastrophically with Timerlane, marked the dissolution of this unified and prosperous Georgian state and the snuffing out of its cultural renaissance. Despite valiant resistance, Georgia lay in ruins, its population devastated and crops destroyed. Misfortune continued under the Safavid Persians and Osmanli Turks. Muslim conquerors had taken Georgians and other captives from the Caucasus to be part of their elite slave military forces, the Mamluks. These Mamluks rose to extraordinary influence in a variety of Middle Eastern societies and even took over power in several cases for significant periods of time in Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere. Similarly, the Safavid Persians in the 17th century forcibly resettled in Iran large numbers of Georgians from eastern regions such as Kakheti and Kartli. Some of these Georgians also rose to prominent positions in the Safavid hierarchy. However, for most Georgians who stayed in Georgia, the Persian and Turkish grasp on them was quite oppressive and it was in seeking protection from Persian and Turkish onslaughts that the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti made its fateful choice to ally itself with Russia in the Georgievsk Treaty of 1783.
By 1800, Eastern Georgia was part of the Russian Czarist Empire, followed by Western Georgia in 1810. There was a brief, complex interlude of independence from 1918-1921 before being swallowed up again into the newly formed Soviet Union. Throughout this period, Russians provided a certain stability in Georgia and indeed they did more or less successfully fight a number of wars with Persia and Ottoman Turks, regaining significant territory for Georgia. However, they also betrayed the initial terms of their agreement which would have given Georgia internal sovereignty over their domestic affairs and made attacks on Georgian culture. Perhaps the most significant of these attacks was on the autocephaly of the Georgian Church, which was forcibly incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1811 and its liturgy replaced by Russian. The assault on their religion and their language prompted many Georgians to resent Russian rule and a Georgian liberation movement was established in the mid 19th century led by the aristocratic writers Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli. Over a century later, Chavchavadze and Tsereteli were important inspirational figures to the anti-Soviet liberation movement of the late 1980s. Like the Mamluks before them, there were a number of Georgians who rose up to the highest ranks of Soviet power, most famously Stalin and his henchman Lavrenti Beria and later on Eduard Shevardnadze. However, despite the Soviet Internationalist ideology, the history of Russian-Georgian relations in the 19th and 20th centuries is fundamentally a history of Russian imperialism.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the granting of independence, Georgia has been embroiled in civil war, economic collapse, and territorial disputes in Adjaria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. However, this turmoil is not new to this small nation of the Caucasus born from the upheaval of continents, and, as always, the manifold voice of Georgia resounds off the mountains, the wine is lifted, and the voice of the tamada says, "Gaumarjos!" Victory!
Goldstein, Darra. 1999. The Georgian Feast. Berkeley: The University of California Press.
Tsurtsumia, Rusudan. 1999. "Professional Music," Georgian Culture. Tbilisi: Kandelaki Foundation.
Nathaniel Berndt - Gaumarjos, Sakartvelo: A Brief Toast to the Culture and History of Georgia (Apr 8, 2008)